blog 7

 Hello:

The expert's name is Pablo Valenzuela. I admire this person because he is a biochemist graduated from the University of Chile with a great career, several studies that helped contribute to health worldwide and won a national award. Pablo made the first vaccine against hepatitis B and the discovery of the virus that causes hepatitis C, thanks to his great technological impact. He also cloned and sequenced the genome of the AIDS virus at the biotechnology company Chiron Corporation.

He is a Biochemist from the University of Chile, PhD in Chemistry from Northwestern University and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California in San Francisco, he is a pioneer of industrial biotechnology.

He founded the biotechnology company Chiron in 1981, together with Dr. William Rutter and Dr. Edward Penhoet, and was until 1994 the Vice President of Research and Development. Under his direction, scientists sequenced the genome of the AIDS virus, discovered the hepatitis C virus and developed a system of controls or tests for the detection of these viruses in blood banks, today used in all countries.

In 1986 he founded GrupoBios S.A., a Chilean biotechnology company, where he is currently president. In 1997 he created the Science for Life Foundation, from where he actively promotes science and scientific-intellectual entrepreneurship in Chile. Thanks to the foundation he has developed a Science and Business Park, unique in Chile, with more than 15 participating institutions, including the laboratories of foreign technology companies such as Austral Biologicals, The Tree Lab, Ventria Bioscience and Medivation Inc.

His relevant activity as a researcher in biotechnology and biomedicine, his great achievements inside and outside Chile, and his generous work in favor of the development of science, have made him one of the most important scientists in our history and a reference.